Sub-Saharan Child and Community Development Trust (SACCODE-Trust)

Thursday, November 26, 2009

I am writing about a group of people that I have been supporting since I first lived in Malawi back in March, 2006. I and Joseph Patemba, a local Malawian businessman, have started a non-profit organization to address the needs of vulnerable children in Malawi.

I also wanted to let you know about an exciting opportunity that we are participating in through our non-profit partner in Washington, D.C., GlobalGiving. These folks are an IRS 501(c)3 non-profit organization that our research shows has an excellent reputation for very low administrative costs and prompt application of donated funds. We are posting projects on their website in order to raise awareness and funding for specific causes. Below in blue is the description of our first project. We have many more on the drawing board all focused towards making a difference in a child’s life through economic improvements in their poverty stricken communities. All of our projects are much more than charity hand-out programs.

This project will feed, clothe, educate & shelter 260 Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children (OVCs) and complete the construction of their daycare centers in bush villages of Malawi, Central Africa.

It is about creating jobs through setting up sustainable projects and businesses in local bush communities. Here’s a quote from Mr. Redson Bwande, the Chairman of the Committee who runs the Maliya Daycare Center that is being renovated as part of this first project:

“In this case, by supporting us parents with jobs, it means you have taken care of a child as well. It’s like killing two birds with a stone.”

From November 24 - December 21, we are competing to earn a spot on the GlobalGiving website, and earn up to US $6,000 from GlobalGiving by being one of the top fundraisers in the Global Open Challenge. In order to keep our project on GlobalGiving and use their website for ongoing and future fundraising, we need to raise a minimum of US $4,000 from at least 50 unique donors during the Challenge.

You can help us succeed by spreading the word!

1. Pass along this email to your friends, family & colleagues and ask them to tell others.

2. If you are planning to make a tax-deductible donation this year to SACCODE-Trust, please do so by going to our project on GlobalGiving between November 24 and December 21.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

I wanted to let you know about an exciting opportunity that we are participating in through our non-profit partner in Washington, D.C., GlobalGiving. From November 24 - December 21, we are competing to earn a spot on the GlobalGiving website, and earn up to US $6,000 from GlobalGiving by being one of the top fundraisers in the Global Open Challenge. The organization with the greatest number of individual donations will get $3,000, and a separate $3,000 prize will go to the project raising the most money. The second and third place runners up for both achievements will get $2,000 and $1,000 respectively.

Here’s the description of our first project to be posted on GlobalGiving’s website: This project will feed, clothe, educate & shelter 260 Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children (OVCs) and complete the construction of their daycare centers in bush villages of Malawi, Central Africa.

In order to keep our project on GlobalGiving and use their website for ongoing and future fundraising, we need to raise a minimum of US $4,000 from at least 50 unique donors during the Challenge.

You can help us succeed by spreading the word!

1. Pass along this email to your friends and family and ask them to tell others.

2. If you are planning to make a tax-deductible donation this year to SACCODE-Trust, please do so by going to our project on GlobalGiving between November 24 and December 21.

I wanted to let you know about an exciting opportunity that we are participating in through our non-profit partner in Washington, D.C., GlobalGiving. From November 24 - December 21, we are competing to earn a spot on the GlobalGiving website.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Malawi is one of the poorest countries of the world with an average life expectancy of 37 years and is at the center of the African HIV/AIDS pandemic. SACCODE-Trust intends to develop and refine its delivery of aid in the challenging country of Malawi and then apply those techniques to other regions in Sub-Saharan Africa.

SACCODE-Trust will initiate the set-up and support the growth of sustainable community-based projects and enterprises in Malawi. Grant funding and revenues from supported projects will be combined and used for the long term benefit of targeted local communities and their vulnerable people. This will result in direct support and funding of 1) humanitarian relief and 2) creation of jobs with livable wages for members of the rural communities.

Project Overview

SACCODE-Trust will use grant funding to 1) establish the NGO as a viable management entity and 2) initiate the trial projects in Malawi. The NGO is in the process of assessing 4 projects for implementation:

- Chicken and Egg Enterprise

- Dental Clinic

- Eco-tourism

- Child & Community Relief Services

The Chicken and Egg Enterprise (CEE) project will provide a source of income, jobs and food for the community. SACCODE TRUST is planning a viable chicken meat and egg production project in possibly three different rural community areas of MALIYA, MANG”OMBA and CHOMA. Using the grant funding, SACCODE-Trust will be able to produce mature live chickens plus eggs for the benefit of the community. Chicken meat may be the first product followed by egg production. These products can also be sold to neighboring cities to include Blantyre and Lilongwe.

The SACCODE Dental project will offer free dental hygiene services to Malawi’s poor and other community members who cannot afford dental services. The Dental Clinic project will address the needs of the rural communities by establishing a mobile dental clinic. Revenue is intended to be generated from a (stationary) clinic in a populated area that has paying customers. The candidate cities for setting up this clinic are Mzuzu, Blantyre or Lilongwe. The resulting revenues combined with grant funding will be used to provide free dental services to rural residents and hygiene training for community member employed by SACCODE-Trust. The stationary clinic will be SACCODE-Trust’s health office where all health personnel and activities planning will be performed. This location is where initial training of local staff by licensed professionals will occur.

The Eco-tourism project is both a revenue generator for the visited communities (community members providing lodging, local adventures, entertainment, art classes and other services) and an awareness/fund-raising tool to expose to the West the real concerns and problems of the people in rural African communities. SACCODE-Trust plans to offer culture/adventure travel packages trips to Malawi tailored to a specific professional group. The socially-minded portion of the trip's itinerary will be geared towards the group's interests and specific skill-set. These activities are then coupled with adventure-based excursions where the wildlife and the culture of different regions within Malawi are explored. The package is designed to appeal to people who have the means to make a difference, and who will promote future economic development projects in the rural communities of Sub-Sahara..

Providing Child & Community Relief Services is the objective of all SACCODE-Trust projects. Two separate community child care centers are currently being assessed to receive grant funding.

MALIYA COMMUNITY AREA –The first effort will be to complete the renovation of Maliya Children’s Day Care Center. Maliya is a bush, rural community area situated in the outskirt of Blantyre City in the traditional authority of Chief Kuntaja where most people earn their living by growing maize. There have been efforts in the past to erect another building for the day care center. These efforts have been hammered by the Maliya community’s mismanagement of funds and other resources.

MANG’OMBA COMMUNITY AREA – Mang’omba is another needy rural community area in the outskirts of Blantyre city in Malawi. In the community there is an already established orphan day care center within its community.. The child care center is not well managed in that the children do not have enough nutritive food, clothing as well as required educational materials such as student texts and toys.

Monday, November 9, 2009

SACCODE-Trust is participating in Global Giving's Global Open Challenge that runs from 24 November through 23 December 2009. The Global Open Challenge is a great opportunity for our non-profit (NGO) to join the GlobalGiving community – so we can leverage their donor networks, technology, and partner relationships to raise funds for our projects online.

Through the Open, projects have the opportunity to earn a spot on the GlobalGiving website if they can mobilize supporters to raise US $4,000 from at least 50 unique donors during this time period. Projects meeting the minimum requirements we automatically earn a spot on GlobalGiving, and we can also compete for additional funding. The three projects receiving the most funding will receive additional awards of $3,000, $2,000, and $1,000, respectively; the project receiving the greatest number of donations will receive an additional $3,000.

Also Global Giving as agreed to be SACCODE-Trust Fiscal Sponsor. This assures all charitiable contributions will be tax deductible in the US.

There will be additional info posted on how to contribute to our work in Malawi, Africa as we get closer to the Open's start date. The picutres below depicts the state of the orphaned chidren in the Maliya bush community, outside of Blantyre, Malawi.

Up to 60 children are taught in this 2 room schoolhouse that also doubles as their daycare center.

The schoolhouse has been recently damaged during Malawi's rainy season.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

SACCODE-Trust came about through a relationship established between Joseph Patemba and Dennis Appel in Blantyre, Malawi during the Fall of 2006. They were working together in support of an orphan daycare center located in Maliya. Maliya is a rural (bush) community located several miles outside of Blantyre. The center was operated by a NGO registered in Malawi called Chimembe Orphan Care Organization (COCO). COCO was seeking additional management and material support to improve the conditions of the daycare center. Dennis was in Malawi serving as Ericsson’s in-country project manager for deploying their wireless switching (cell phone) networks, and Joseph, whose family resides in the Congo, was an active member of management and project coordinator for COCO (since 2005).

Joseph is pictured here with his wife and family on their wedding day in May 2009.

Through organizing fundraisers such as football tournaments, food and clothing drives, and ’sundowners’ with local community members, charitable organizations and businesses, COCO was able to provide some of the needed funds and material goods for the daycare center. However not all of the objectives were met and the fate of the children remain in question where support is still desperately needed.
The forming of SACCODE-Trust was driven by a need to provide transparent management and distribution of received funds and material goods, which was desperately needed if the care of the children and their living conditions were going to improve. The management team of SACCODE-Trust sees a need for change in the delivery and administration of aid in Africa and believes these types of socially driven, humanitarian efforts are necessary and important to improve the conditions of sub-Saharan African communities.

SACCODE-Trust is at a turning point. Energy and resources are being assembled to hopefully make a difference by providing long term humanitarian support of African communities. This will occur through appropriate international relationships and channels whereby funding and other necessary resources can be obtained.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

World organizations are trying to understand the need for and to measure the quality of aid currently being provided to Africa. A view as gathered from written articles and TV News shows such as the BBC’s The World Uncovered: Aid, Is it Working?, is twofold – Aid is very essential for 3rd world countries in order to protect and preserve basic human rights. But aid as it is administered today is not working as effectively as it could.

Corruption, lack of good governance, and donor country’s control of the use of the money are some of the many reasons for this ineffectiveness. Also the countries and communities receiving the aid become dependent on it and do not use it to grow stronger economically; thus remaining in the same poor condition after the aid is applied.

It is agreed that aid must be used to provide basics services like health, education and water, and must promote the development of other infrastructure. Application of Aid is considered most appropriate for the following:Development of Human Beings – Socially and EconomicallyDevelopment of Good GovernanceDevelopment of Infrastructure

Other significant areas to improve aid effectiveness, which are being considered at the world stage, include:-Communities need a voice to indicate to donors their real needs and their views on how best to use and distribute aid.-Donors need experience and direct feedback on what is needed and a way to measure how the aid is being administered.-Communities must use aid as a catalyst to become stable economically thereby allowing them to provide the needed support for the vulnerable people in their own community.

The Sub-Saharan Child and Community Development Enterprise (SACCODE) truly believes traditional aid is a catalyst and should be used accordingly to provide basic human needs and to position rural communities for economical stability and growth.

SACCODE’s focus and strategy is geared towards jobs creation and economical stability of rural communities, which is intended to directly promote the care and support of needy children and other vulnerable people in their respective communities.

SACCODE, as an upcoming international NGO working in Africa with its principal pilot branch in Malawi, will reach its goal of thoroughly redressing problems that an African child faces. Specific actions towards achieving this include:-Amplifying the voices of the community to improve the process and to assure that aid is addressing the real needs of their community. -Focusing on creating jobs and providing ‘livable’ wages for people in rural Malawian communities. Support the further growth of a Malawian middle class.-Raising ‘seed’ money from the donor community and others to invest in revenue generating ‘startups’ or projects with the goal of creating a positive cash flow for their rural communities.-Forming joint ventures with local community representatives where SACCODE acting as a holding company maintains management and financial control of the new organizations.-Ensuring that the profits of the organization if achieved are provided for the care of the needy people in the community.-Developing a relationship with Polytechnic’s Entrepreneurial Program that is being sponsored by Scotland’s Strathclyde University with the goal of making their programs viable in the rural communities.-Being an efficient and auditable vehicle for the gathering, channeling and distribution of donor funds to local community and their enterprises. -Calibrating the process of giving aid where real metrics and statistics are fed back to donor organizations so they can determine if their aid is targeted as intended and being used properly and effectively.-Providing possibilities for needy communities to have primary schools, community gardens and income generating infrastructure for the benefit of entire communities.-Providing community empowerment through proper training and:a. provisioning of micro-loans and micro-grants from a revolving fund under the supervision of SACCODE secretariat branchesb. providing a very efficient means to distribute donated funds to the people in needc. developing specialize revenue generating projects for each communityd. carrying out feasibility studies, i.e. surveys, consultations, experiments, research, etc.e. making sure that there is tangible capacity, i.e. technical buildup, personnel competence, legal as well as reliable ideologies, etc. for the implementation of its planned activities. The following approaches aimed at capacity build up will be used: i. training and hiring of qualified personnel, and use of other available personnel resources ii. sourcing of supporting materials from libraries, individuals, necessary organisations and any other related sources.f. implementing projects where there shall be constant checks and controls on progress of the activities to assure the projects’ success, which is fed back to donor organizations.